Monthly Archives: June 2014

This week brought in the usual Star Wars X-Wing matches… of a sort. With the release of the Wave 4 ships, there were a number of new squads being assembled.

The first match pit a TIE Interceptor squad against my squad of the new Z-95 Headhunter ships. The squad did okay, not great, but okay. An assault missile attack managed to wound all four of the TIE Interceptors and take out two of my own ships. I did manage to take of all but one Interceptor, which managed to take me out.

As for the Headhunters, I am still not entirely sold on them. They are not particularly fast or agile, nor do they do a lot of damage with their primary weapons. But, they are cheap, so it is possible to run a five ship squad with each ship equipped with assault missiles and munitions failsafes. This particular squad was led by Lieutenant Blount, who has the ability to hit with an attack even if he does not do any damage. Combined with assault missiles, which do 1 damage to all ships in range 1 of the target ship, this is a powerful ability even if it is used only once.

The second match had me switching sides. I played my new TIE Phantom squad against the Headhunter squad from before. The TIE Phantom had a bit of a learning curve since it has an ability unique to the ships in X-Wing so far: it cloaks. One particularly bad decloaking messed up my plans early which almost cost me. By the end of the match, I got the hang of the cloak/decloak maneuvering and was able to finish off the headhunters.

I really have to say that I like the Phantoms. Once I got used to how cloaking works in Star Wars, I was able to play a strategy of cloak, decloak, attack, and cloak again. The addition of the Advance Cloaking System, which allows a Phantom to immediately take a cloaking action after performing an attack, also helped to keep the ships alive (being cloaked adds 2 defense dice). What was really unexpected was the ship’s attack. The Phantom’s regular attack is 4, extremely powerful, especially at close range. I had also added an Outmaneuver upgrade which, in the right situation, can take a defense die away from a ship being attacked.

Between the matches we checked out Sails of Glory. This is a miniatures game set in the Napoleonic era. The players take control of one or more tall ships to compete in scenarios either suggested in the rulebook or created by players. I picked the game up as sometime to do with my father, who recently retired. I did want to try it out first to get an idea how it plays. And, thankfully, a couple of the guys at the game shop were willing to help out. To keep things simple, we just played the basic game (simple rules for maneuvering and attacking). Unless X-Wing, maneuvers are picked out of a deck of cards. Each ship has their own deck, and what they are capable of doing is based on wind direction in relation to their ship. Damage is pretty easy to determine: if you’re in range, you are capable of doing damage. Once the attack is declared, damage is pulled from a bag with chips in it, and those chips are placed in the damage tracks of the ships (one for the ship, one for the crew).

It is an interesting game, and one I definitely want to try out again, both on my own and with my dad.

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The comics are still in a bit of a drought, but there were a couple of good pulls this week.

First up is Batman Eternal #12. The trial of Jim Gordon has begun, and the former commissioner is visited by a surprise guest.

Next there is Superman #32. John Romita Jr. and Geoff Johns begin their run with Clark getting an offer to return to the Daily Planet, and the coming of a strange and powerful visitor from the doomed planet of… Earth?

Granted, for me, the biggest pull of the week was the release of the Star Wars X-Wing wave 4 ships. More on these once I check them out.

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Not much to talk about tonight. I did manage to pick up a couple of poor man’s gaming mats for both X-Wing and the newly acquired Sails of Glory. And by poor man’s mats, I mean I stopped at Jo-Ann Fabric and picked up two pieces of felt material in the right dimensions for both games.

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This week was more about game acquisition than actual gaming. My usual X-Wing matches were deferred because one of the regulars wanted to see if he could find a build that could beat the Borg in Star Trek Attack Wing. I never really got into this game, though I did buy the starter set. The lack of a consistent scale bugged me.

The game itself plays a lot like X-Wing, but I’m not sure if I’m eager to get into yet another miniature ship game (more on why in a bit).

After the two matches (first match was all Borg, the second the Klingons got a hard fought victory), we switched over to the Lord of the Rings deck building game. To be specific, this was the Two Towers edition. This is a lot like the DC Comics Deck Builder Game themed for LOTR and with other subtle differences. We played a five player game, and though I had some strategy, I still came in second to last.

After that we switched over to Sentinels of the Multiverse, since many of us wanted to try the Vengeance expansion. The big difference is that the Vengeance expansion pits the heroes against five villains instead of just one villain. We managed to take out two of the villains, but just could not hold on against the remaining three. The heroes went down to defeat.

These game really only topped off the day. The main show was the purchases. The latest play alone expansion of Ascension came out this week and naturally, I had to pick it up. Ascension: Realms Unraveled adds a number of new transforming heroes (heroes that can be upgraded under the right circumstances), along with multiple faction cards which gain powers from two different types.

I also picked up Sails of Glory, a miniature game where players captain the sailing vessels of the 18th and 19th century. I had seen the individual ships the previous week, and was curious about the game. This week, they had in the basic set, which gives you everything you need to start playing. Given the time period, I thought maybe my father might be interested in picking up the game as well which would give us something to do together. Even if he decides not to try it out, I know of a few people at the game shop who either have the game or would not mind trying it out, so I will most likely get a chance to play.

Since I have gotten back into board and card games, my collection has bloomed quite a bit. According to my stats on Board Game Geek, my collection stands at around 283 games. I say around 283 because this list also includes a number of expansions which usually cannot be played independently of the main game (I say usually because many of the Ascension expansions can be played independently or combined into one super deck building game). Lately, I have been working on picking away at this list, trying to play the games I have on this list before I move onto buying new games. Or, at least, trying to, since I still plan on buying new stuff.

Still, there are a few games on this list which I do not see playing in the forseeable future for one reason or another.